Understanding and using trends are critical for any creative professional or entrepreneur. Trend forecasting is the phrase that is used when people try to tell the future. It is important because it can help you design products, websites, services and experiences that will help to shape the needs of people in the future. This is hard to do because the future isn’t here yet. Trends in fonts, colours, imagery and layout are always changing. On the marketing and business front, knowing how the business landscape is changing is equally important. Have you ever noticed that the same colours, trends and patterns are usually in different stores? How do they end up with the same palettes and styles? It is because they all use the same method of gathering trends. They hear about trends from the same manufacturers and go out and shop at the same places across the globe. Trend forecasting services can also be purchased for almost any industry. Here are a few places where you can discover trends to drive change in your design, branding and business: Digital Culture This is a broad term, but it refers to knowing what is going on currently on broadcast news, Google, websites and news sites. Physical Retail If your products or designs show up in the real world in retail, you need to go out and shop it regularly. Go out and pay attention to really observe what is happening in stores so that you can recreate this in online experiences. Competitive Research Go online and look at the blogs and social media of your competition; as it is really critical for discovering trends. This way, you will know what they are doing over time and be able to jump when your competition launches new campaigns, loyalty programmes or other services. Staying on top of your competition is one of the best ways to pick up on trends in your industry. Need help with your web design or digital marketing? Then contact WSI OMS today. Please follow and like...

Offering a host of incredible features, we take a look at three online tools guaranteed to boost your social media marketing strategy. Followerwonk Followerwonk is dedicated to finding, analysing and optimising Twitter analytics. This makes it possible for you to collect important insights and information on various Twitter users, seek out and discover popular accounts in your industry niche, as well as identify potential brand influencers to collaborate with. The tool also allows you to compare Twitter accounts, your relationships with your followers as well as your competitors. Ultimately, it’s everything you need to really make a noticeable impact on this ever-growing social media marketing platform. RiteTag What is Twitter without hashtags? The question is, how can you find the best hashtags to help promote your brand and get your content seen? With a tool like RiteTag! This software provides suggestions in terms of which hashtags are currently trending and relevant to tweet. It will almost certainly help you to increase your tweets’ impressions and engagements. TrendsMap Struggling to get creative in terms of what to tweet about? The free feature of TrendsMap is to find out what is trending in specific areas of the world, as well as a 7-day history. You can view what is trending within a country or zoom into a specific city if you wish. If you are willing to invest in the program, other helpful features include adding an alert for your topics, extended Twitter history searches and on-map visualization of any topic. Here at WSI OMS, we make use of the best social media marketing tools to help take your strategy and results to all-new heights. If you’d like to see an improvement in your interactions, engagements and online conversions, then we’re the experts to contact. Get in touch now to learn more. Please follow and like...

In the past, it was very hard to become famous. Thanks to social media and YouTube, however, any of us – and any of the creative things we do – can become famous literally overnight. Of all the hours of videos that get uploaded to YouTube every day, only a small percentage gets millions of views and becomes a cultural moment. What sets these videos apart? Tastemakers, communities of participation and unexpectedness are the three key things that can make your content go viral. In 2012, Jimmy Kimmel shared a video of a rainbow that a person in the Yosemite mountain park had uploaded. The video instantly went viral because Jimmy Kimmel, as a tastemaker, alerted a huge community of the video and many of them went to check it out. Unlike the one-way communication of the twentieth century, the community participation that social media provides lets everyone become a part of a new phenomenon. People become a part of a phenomenon by spreading it or doing something new with it, such as creating memes and parodies. To create content that goes viral on social media, you have to focus on content that ignites creativity within a community. This creativity and interest can be used for new versions of your content, to make fun of whatever you have posted and to set a trend. People don’t just enjoy content, they participate in it. By being totally surprising and humorous, you could get your content viewed by millions of people who want to participate in what you are doing. Need help with your social media marketing or digital marketing strategy? Then contact WSI OMS today. Please follow and like...

YouTube is a vehicle, not a destination. Many people, from online influencers to business owners, have successfully used YouTube to build their personal brands over the years. If you want to build your online presence and create more opportunities for yourself, then YouTube is a great tool to help you to achieve this goal. Social media websites such as Instagram, Facebook and Twitter are also good tools for building your brand, but the problem with these sites is that the content doesn’t always live on. Content that gets posted on these sites is only there for a moment, whereas your content on YouTube lives on in the search results. Think of your YouTube channel as your own personal Netflix. It is a body of work, not a social media feed that keeps going and going. Your content on YouTube can continue to bring opportunities to you a week, month or year after it has been posted. Here are some practical ways to build your presence on YouTube: Show, Don’t Tell After you have created your YouTube channel and customised the page, you need to set a schedule to start creating content. This is where you should focus on the adage “show, don’t tell.” With your website, you are limited to static web pages, but you can film everything from product demonstrations to your workshops and elevator pitch on your YouTube channel. Being able to show the process of your work and communicate your personality in a different way is what makes YouTube marketing invaluable. It is one of the most effective ways to communicate. Define Your Goals Do you want leads? Do you need to boost brand awareness? Do you want 1 000 new subscribers each month? Think about your goals for this platform, so that you consistently work towards achieving these goals. Interact With Your Community YouTube marketing is not a one-way channel. Keep an eye on the comment section of your videos and interact with people who engage with you. You can also use your YouTube channel to crowdsource ideas. Need help with your social media marketing? Then contact WSI OMS today. Please follow and like...

SEO reputation management is a service that companies are increasingly turning towards out of necessity. If negative search results are causing you grief, damaging your brand, or impacting sales, it is time to take action. In today’s world of negative media consumption, one negative article, news story or bad customer review can impact your business. Too often, we see this type of content reach the top of Google’s search results and completely wipe out a company’s growth. Over 90% of consumers research a company, product or service online before they make a purchase. Once they have honed in on a product, company or the CEO of a company, they search for that specific name. When they do, you better hope that there is no dirt on that name. If there is, you could also consider that lead, customer or fan lost forever. Whether you are an athlete, consultant, celebrity or an Average Joe, you are still subject to online reputation damage. DUI’s, court cases, lawsuits, dud photos – all of these things could have your digital name stamped on it and this information can be presented by search engines to the world. You need a solution for cleaning up your online reputation. Your strategy should be proactive and, in some cases, aggressive. The challenge is that most of the content can’t be removed from the internet because you can’t control the websites that the information has been posted on. With WSI’s help, however, you can work towards ensuring that the bad, horrible and even sometimes dirty content never gets found if they are searching for your name, your company or your product. Contact WSI OMS for more information about how we can help you use SEO and other digital marketing services to improve your online reputation. Please follow and like...